


cape of certain hope

by casualbird



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route Spoilers, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Intercrural Sex, Menstrual Sex, Nonbinary Character, Other, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Running Away, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:33:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27312676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/casualbird/pseuds/casualbird
Summary: Caspar and Linhardt desert after Gronder. It is not a stab of cowardice.
Relationships: Caspar von Bergliez/Linhardt von Hevring
Comments: 7
Kudos: 45





	cape of certain hope

**Author's Note:**

> helllllooooooo!!
> 
> while no particular words are used to describe anyone's anatomical situation in this fic, caspar is a trans man and he does have sex with linhardt while his aunt flo is in town. i hope that doesn't make anyone uncomfortable i swear to god it's for symbolism

It’s the last evening they’ll spend as Caspar and Linhardt. When the night crumbles away, when the dawn looms soft on the horizon, their ship will dock, and the Goddess willing they’ll be other people.

“Sage,” breathes Caspar, just to try it. His fingers curl in the silk of his love’s hair, magicked a magpie-black.

It doesn’t look right wound around his fingers. The alias falls crooked from his mouth.

His jaw clamps, grinding teeth like millstones.

“It does sound strange,” says Linhardt. “Maybe I should pick another name… but that sounds like _work,”_ they yawn, “and I think I’ve done enough work for a lifetime.”

Caspar nods, because if any good will come of this it will be that Linhardt never has to raise a hand again. They can while all their days in Morfis libraries, hemming and scribbling in linen robes, in quiet alcoves, in lofted ivory towers.

For a moment, the image is enough to chase the war from his mind. He kisses them, new stubble dragging on their cheek, and they laugh like the littlest of bells.

The timbers of the ship creak, the floor a lulling rock beneath their feet. Caspar’s hand wracks to steady himself, and it lands on the bird-boned crest of Linhardt’s hip, sharp even through the broadcloth of their dress.

Linhardt looks up at him, through lashes Caspar swears get longer every time. The low lamplight spills through them, dappling their cheeks. “Is that the kind of man that Bernard is?” they ask, softly and not without levity. “To accost a lady so?”

Caspar splutters, unsure of the joke. Still--the knobs of Linhardt’s knuckles settle over his own, twining their fingers gently like a daisy-chain.

“Sage isn’t the kind of lady who minds,” they say.

“Is Linhardt?” The words come chipped-out, carefully hewn.

“They don’t mind, either. ” A smile--sympathetic, heavy with knowing. “They rather think they’d like to be held, tonight.”

Caspar gathers them up like a bride, lays them out on their berth, and does.

_I need that, too,_ he does not say.

* * *

A week ago, they were running. Slipshod, breathless through abandoned holloways, briar-branches clawing at their clothes.

A week and a morning ago, Caspar was gearing up to take the day at Gronder. Even if they had to fight their schoolmates, even if they had to fight Dimitri.

Even if they had to fight _Byleth._

* * *

They didn’t take the day.

The day took _them,_ all unawares and clamoring, and heaven help them, the day took Bernadetta, took her howling and shrieking and bleeding. Took her burning, in the end.

The two of them knew Edelgard was sorry. 

Linhardt had the brass in them to know that it wasn’t enough.

Their fingers tore at Caspar’s shoulder as they Warped, and they’ve been running ever since.

* * *

Lying in their berth, Caspar’s back aches. His insides roil.

He doesn’t ask Linhardt to spell it away.

Surely, there’s one pain he can bear.

He huffs, hounds the past days from his mind. Catches Linhardt closer in arms that will never swing a pair of claws again.

Supposes there’s a beauty in that, some newborn part of him he’s never met before. He wonders how difficult carpentry could be, or masonry, ditch-digging, anything.

As if Caspar’s thoughts are their own, Linhardt sighs with satisfaction.

Caspar only holds them tighter, nuzzles his nose into their nape.

* * *

In Her Imperial Majesty’s army, the price of desertion is a death at dawn, on the pragmatic scythe of a gallows or axe. 

Against Dimitri, against a turned Byleth? It would be worse. Still, that isn’t why they run. That would be cowardice, and Linhardt has told Caspar so many times that they are not _cowards._

They spend the first night huddled in the damp corner of some inn, and think only of the words _just war,_ of _our friend Bernie-bear._

* * *

Over the past several days, it’s occurred to Caspar that Linhardt always _knows._ Where they are going, where they will end, which hidden jewels they’ll pawn to get there.

Even the name, they pluck out as if from thin air.

Caspar wonders how long they’ve known.

* * *

They come together, in rhythm with the calm of the sea. Side by side, with Caspar’s thigh heavy over Linhardt’s hip, an anchor.

Linhardt’s fingers curl in the back of Caspar’s shirt, breath shuddering. They are half-silent, but it’s not for any concern about eavesdroppers. The walls are thin, yes, but Caspar and Linhardt are no strangers to their lovers’ caterwauling.

It’s just--in this bed, on these waters, in this direction. There is no room for it.

They cleave to each other instead, as tight as ever. Black hair splays across the pillow, sticks in Caspar’s mouth. Beard-burn dapples Linhardt’s collarbones like spilt rouge. Their circle-skirt is hitched around their waist, and Caspar’s hand shifts under the hem, urges at their thigh.

_Come on,_ he seems to say.

Linhardt keeps their pace, though, slow and shivering and lazy. They rock into the juncture of his thigh in long strokes, gasping at their closest. Caspar is _throbbing,_ soft and warm and slick, and Linhardt sobs silent for it, drawing ever ever closer.

The better part of that slick is blood, they know. They’ve seen it thick on Caspar’s inner thighs, trailed their fingers through it.

They don’t care. Saints save them, they don’t care.

They’d decided this many years ago, or perhaps only properly last week:

They love Caspar more than they fear _anything._

* * *

Maybe, thinks Caspar, when they’re finished, maybe he can love Linhardt that way too.

Maybe he always should have.

_We are anything cowards,_ Linhardt tells him, on and on and on. _We’ve made our own decisions about what justice is._

It made sense until it didn’t.

Surely, Caspar was a man of justice. Surely, he had decided time and again what made right.

He wonders, now, looking back, why that had ever meant war.

* * *

“Linny,” mumbles Caspar, fitful in a way he can’t describe, like there’s some small thing kicking in the disused corners of him.

“That’s Lady Sage to you,” says Linhardt, but pulls him closer anyway. Holds him, runs mage-scarred fingers over fresh-cut hair, a nascent beard spelled brown.

Caspar apologizes, half-below his breath. It’s his neck if they’re found, Emperor’s schoolfriends or not.

It’s _Linhardt’s_ neck, soft as it is, pale gold in the lamplight. A neck he’s nuzzled, kissed, saved and been saved by.

“Sage,” Caspar amends, because there is no turning back.

**Author's Note:**

> hi again!
> 
> i commend you for getting this far, gentle reader! this isn't the sort of thing i usually write, so i thank you for sticking with me on it! let me know what you thought, this one gave me a hell of a time to write and i really, really hope it's good. i'm sorry if it's a bit of a bummer............
> 
> come hang out with me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/bird_scribbles) if you like, and talk about dumb war children with me!!
> 
> also: title is from dry the river's coast, because in this house we stan dry the river. 
> 
> have a lovely halloweeeeeeeeeeeen!!!! maybe, just maybe, this fic counts as a spooky halloween thing.... but probably not.


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